Comments on “Not all Buddhism is about liberation from suffering”

I look forward to the next entry, I liked the first one a lot, hence the follow.
It is said it Tibet that you cannot see the summit of a mountain from the summit of a smaller mountain but it’s not that one way is better than another, its that one way is better for one person and not the other. You might be surprised to know that Vajrayana Buddhism is very much alive in the western countries.

QP

More variety, really? I cannot imagine something having more variety than the Buddhadharma with its 84000 different teachings. I would like to see humanity choosing one part of Buddhism each for themselves and start digging really deep in one place with it. The results would be astounding.

QP

Thanks for this… the idea that Dzogchen ‘let’s go the goal of anatman’ sounds right and I’m wondering if this is because base, path and fruit are the same?

I know that this may go down like a ton of bricks but here goes......
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of emptiness. I write as a practitioner and from direct experience. It is an academic understanding. An experiential understanding of the emptiness of self wouldn’t have this as a conclusion because the problem would be seen very simply.

What you have critiqued is the daft Buddhist models based on superstition where there is no suffering at all. The silliness is got round by believers saying ‘anyone with this attainment wouldn’t show it.’ Well that could be said of someone who claims to be able to shoot fire out of their arse but who says they won’t demonstrate it for superstitious reasons. They’d be laughed at and for very good reason.

The suffering that ceases when the appearance of an inherently existent self ceases is clear to see when it happens. It is a very specific subset of suffering.

Like with the rainbows that appear in the sky but were never ever there and never will be, there is no inherently existent self to get rid of. The rainbow can’t be removed from the sky because they were never there. What can be removed is the minds perception of a rainbow in the sky.

The rainbow does not exist, you can’t have one person near it in the air seeing it and one on the ground seeing it. The rainbow can’t be gotten rid of and in the same way there is no ‘self’ to get rid of.

Anyone who craves owning a rainbow might try and collect a piece of one in a jar. But they can’t. Because it never existed. They may get upset if someone criticises the rainbow in the sky or be delighted when someone praises it’s beauty. But it was never there. The problem is not a rainbow needing to be extinguished or enhanced, or transformed. It was never there.

That doesn’t mean rainbow didn’t appear to the mind. Because it did. But not more than that. Not more than that. ‘Rainbows not really being in the sky’ isn’t a belief, or a dogma, or a practice, or a sect, or a school of thought, or a tradition, or a sutra, or a tantra, or a British thing, or a US thing, or a Christian thing or a Buddhist thing, or a lower school thing or an upper school thing, or a vajrayana thing or a non vajrayana thing.

It’s just that if you think the rainbow can be grabbed and put in a jar but you can never get it you suffer non contentment. If you think the rainbow shouldn’t be insulted you suffer non contentment. if you think the rainbow is under attack you develop non contentment.

The rainbow was never ever there. This is the point. When this recognition is present the suffering of non contentment associated with the rainbow can’t possibly arise. You can still be kicked in the bollocks or be headbutted and the physical pain will manifest and you might still sometimes be a dick or really nice because personality is not owned by a self. Thoughts and feelings have no owner. The rainbow doesn’t own anything. We can’t say it’s the rainbow’s cloud....because there’s no rainbow up there.

In the same way ‘it’s my thought’ or ‘it’s my feeling’ are just themselves thoughts.

There is specific suffering that arises because of the above mistaken mental construct. Other suffering doesn’t cease. The nervous system still functions. And there is contentment.

Vedanta offers a deeper insight into stillness where everything including the sufferings of mistaking a real self is accepted contentedly. This stillness can watch the mistake Buddhism addresses and can watch it not being there too if that happens. Both are ok because that content stillness doesn’t need anything to be different from the way it is.

The mistake Vedanta practitioners make is that because the ignorance of self still functions it labels the stillness ‘self’ and things it really has intrinsic selfness imbued in it. It doesn’t but the mistake can’t be spotted.

This is why Vedanta practitioners usually have ignorance remaining and hanging by a thread and Buddhist practitioners can’t watch there ignorance and wisdom from the unchanging stillness that everything appears within.

There is general appearance within the stillness and then mind imputes ‘object’ onto bits of it and gives that idea a name. The mind then bizarrely decides it didn’t create the idea of the object and that it had been there all along waiting to be discovered.

Anything can appear and the mind can endlessly relate to it. That accounts for so much Buddhist ritual, visualisation etc. The crucial question is what is the nature of the things the mind experiences. And can the stillness that everything occurs within become the observation platform. The first is dealt with in Buddhism, the second is dealt with in Vedanta using the pointing method.

Every ball of knotted string unravels differently so I’m not criticising anyone’s path but I am conveying the correct Buddhist meaning because I experience it has do others I’ve chatted to having followed the instructions and had awakenings. Even that is just appearance with no owner, hence emptiness is empty.

Good luck with the Vajrayana. It’s only Vajrayana if the ignorance I’ve described is turned off. If that ignorance isn’t turned off then it’s mental theatre or training in correct view. Training in correct view doesn’t need anything esoteric or special though, it’s very simple.

Just wondering what your response would be to some of the commenter Paul Follows’ critiques and observations that I don’t see a reply to? It’s been a bit over 3 years, so I imagine you’ve had time to digest and formulate one